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For anyone still making up their minds about AV
Wednesday, 4 May 2011 07:45Tomorrow is the day of the AV referendum, and I know some people are still making up their minds how to vote. I've explained my own reasons for supporting AV in a previous post. But if you're still unsure today, allow me to put the case for the Alternative Vote in the clearest way I can.
Basically, First Past The Post is fine for binary decisions: e.g. Cake or Death? But if Chocolate is offered too, the 'We just want to live!' vote may be split, allowing Death to win. (Unlikely, of course, but who knows? There may be a lot of suicidal people living in your constituency.)
In the real world, FPTP was fine in the 1950s, when most voters were making a binary choice. In 1951, 97% of people voted either Conservative or Labour – so most MPs (94%, to be precise) were able to win a clear majority of support in their constituency. But in 2010, only 65% of people voted Conservative or Labour. Our votes are now spread across a wider range of parties – and the result is that two-thirds of MPs in the House of Commons today hold less than 50% of the total vote in their constituency. They've secured the largest minority, but do they have the support of the majority? We don't know, because FPTP doesn't check that.
At its worst, FPTP has allowed BNP candidates to be elected in some council seats because the majority non-BNP vote was split. Someone on Facebook posted this image of the results from Coalville ward in Leicestershire:
But it's not the only case of its kind. See also Mixenden in Calderdale, Mill Hill in Blackburn, or Fenside in Boston, Lincolnshire.
The extremist nature of the BNP means it isn't hard to imagine that the majority of the voters in these wards did not actually want a BNP councillor. But because the non-BNP-supporting majority spread their votes across a variety of other candidates, that's what they got.
The wider point about FPTP is that any candidate who wins on less than 50% of the vote may be just as loathed by the majority of their constituents as (we can guess that) these BNP councillors were. But FPTP doesn't check up on this by probing the views of the split majority. AV resolves this problem by eliminating trailing candidates one at a time, bringing split votes for similar candidates back together, and identifying a majority consensus. Put simply, it is a way of double-checking that the result which we would have had under FPTP really reflects what the majority want.
( Further discussion for politics geeks of what the BNP examples reveal about the problems with tactical voting under FPTP )
So if you want a system which:
Click here if you would like view this entry in light text on a dark background.
Basically, First Past The Post is fine for binary decisions: e.g. Cake or Death? But if Chocolate is offered too, the 'We just want to live!' vote may be split, allowing Death to win. (Unlikely, of course, but who knows? There may be a lot of suicidal people living in your constituency.)
In the real world, FPTP was fine in the 1950s, when most voters were making a binary choice. In 1951, 97% of people voted either Conservative or Labour – so most MPs (94%, to be precise) were able to win a clear majority of support in their constituency. But in 2010, only 65% of people voted Conservative or Labour. Our votes are now spread across a wider range of parties – and the result is that two-thirds of MPs in the House of Commons today hold less than 50% of the total vote in their constituency. They've secured the largest minority, but do they have the support of the majority? We don't know, because FPTP doesn't check that.
At its worst, FPTP has allowed BNP candidates to be elected in some council seats because the majority non-BNP vote was split. Someone on Facebook posted this image of the results from Coalville ward in Leicestershire:
But it's not the only case of its kind. See also Mixenden in Calderdale, Mill Hill in Blackburn, or Fenside in Boston, Lincolnshire.
The extremist nature of the BNP means it isn't hard to imagine that the majority of the voters in these wards did not actually want a BNP councillor. But because the non-BNP-supporting majority spread their votes across a variety of other candidates, that's what they got.
The wider point about FPTP is that any candidate who wins on less than 50% of the vote may be just as loathed by the majority of their constituents as (we can guess that) these BNP councillors were. But FPTP doesn't check up on this by probing the views of the split majority. AV resolves this problem by eliminating trailing candidates one at a time, bringing split votes for similar candidates back together, and identifying a majority consensus. Put simply, it is a way of double-checking that the result which we would have had under FPTP really reflects what the majority want.
( Further discussion for politics geeks of what the BNP examples reveal about the problems with tactical voting under FPTP )
So if you want a system which:
- Ensures that each constituency elects an MP whom the majority of the voters there really support.
- Prevents widely hated candidates from winning because the majority vote against them was split.
- Allows people to express their preferences honestly, without having to make (imperfect) guesses about how other people will vote.
- Deals with those preferences systematically and in the best interests of the individual voter, no matter what other voters do.
Click here if you would like view this entry in light text on a dark background.
